Apple TV Could Get Continuity Along With iOS 8 And OS X Yosemite This Fall

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Apple’s new Continuity feature is a marquee element of both iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, due out this fall, but the Apple TV might get in on the action, too, according to new information reported by 9to5Mac. Developers running the preview build of OS 10.10, aka Yosemite, are seeing notifications that say their Apple TV is available for Continuity when both their Mac and the streaming media device are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

The functionality doesn’t appear to be fully baked yet, as there’s no indication of what that allows the Mac to hand off to the Apple TV, or vice versa. But it’s very reasonable to speculate that it would make it possible to jump from watching a movie on your iPad, iPhone or Mac to watching it on the big screen via your Apple TV. It’s better than AirPlay in theory, as it wouldn’t require direct streaming from your iOS or Mac device, and it may also work with multiple content sources, though it’s likely to focus on iTunes library stuff at the very least.

Either way it makes sense for Apple to add Handoff and Continuity to the Apple TV, though as 9to5Mac points out, it’ll probably only work for latest generation hardware that includes a Bluetooth LE chip, as that’s an important part of how Continuity works and so far, there’s only been beta software for the third-generation version of the streaming box.

Of course, as with anything in unreleased preview software, there’s a big chance this could not make an appearance in the shipping version in the fall, as it might be included only for early testing. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment, but they hadn’t provided a response as of press time.